My wife and I renewed our vows here for our 10 year wedding anniversary. We booked the chapel online a month prior. We were very excited because we had friends and family coming with us to witness the event. Our scheduled time was 9pm but the driver/chapel was running late. No big deal for us. We had a drink at our hotel and waited for the limo. Limo arrived and we were whisked off to the chapel. At the chapel we finalized the paperwork which turned out to be $14 more than my original invoice but I happily paid without any questions. The cashier presented me with an envelope. The envelope was for a "donation" for the minister. Cleverly, the envelope has $40 imprinted on it as the minimum donation. I rolled my eyes and thought what a joke. I did intend to leave a donation but in all honesty I only intended to leave about $10. My wife and I had renewed our vows before here 5 years prior and we knew the ceremony only lasts a few moments. $10 would be a sufficient donation. We planned to take care of the donation after the ceremony. Just as we were about to begin walking down the aisle the cashier bursts through the door demanding the donation indicating that the ceremony could not begin until the donation envelope was received. I could not believe it. One of our guests actually placed $50 in the envelope and gave it to the large framed lady. It was very awkward and unnecessary. About 4 minutes later the ceremony had concluded and we were all just shaking our heads. Not very classy on their part. Anyway we did the photos and headed back to the hotel.
We later called them to let them know that we felt the intrusion from the cashier was rude and unnecessary and when we told them that the $50 "donation" kindly left by one of our guests was in our opinion way too generous we were informed that all donations are placed into a safe and not checked for a few days. I know, strange business practice. Maybe a little too unbelievable if you know what I mean. So if you're planning to marry here do not feel any pressure to leave a large donation (remember though $40 is their minimum donation requirement). In fact feel no pressure to leave any donation at all. If I could do it all over again I would have placed monopoly money in there. After all, all donations are safely locked away for several days and all are anonymous.
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